Week of flooding in southern China kills 37

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government says flooding over the past week in the country’s south has killed 37, left six missing, and forced almost half a million people from their homes.

The seasonal rains have fallen especially hard on the country’s manufacturing hub of Guangdong province near Hong Kong, where 17 of the deaths were reported. The Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday that at least 25,000 homes have been destroyed by the flood waters with at least 440,000 people displaced.

More thunderstorms were forecast for Guangdong on Tuesday.

China’s worst floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River, China’s mightiest.

The massive Three Gorges Dam has largely contained Yangtze flooding, but the problem persists in the south and north.